Republican Search for Election Fraud Finds Election Fraud with Republicans

That’s Okay, That Kind of Election Fraud is Good

One of the themes of Republican led state governments is that the voting process is fraught with fraud.  In spite of the fact that there is absolutely no evidence of widespread, or even narrow spread fraud, Republicans continue to pursue charges of election fraud and try to enact provisions that will discourage fraudulent (i.e. Democratic) voting.    In their minds how else can one explain the fact that Democrats sometimes win elections.

A New York Times report documents a real case of attempted (and what may ultimately be successful) election fraud.  It seems the Arizona State Senate President, Russell Pearce is subject to a recall election over his roll in supporting Arizona’s hard anti-immigration laws.  That seems fair enough, elections are one way in which political disputes are settled in this country.

But a fair election was not something Mr. Pearce and his supporters wanted



Jack Kurtz/The Arizona Republic, via Associated Press

Olivia Cortes, at a recent court hearing,

withdrew from a State Senate race after

 questions about her candidacy were raised.



Critics of Mr. Pearce’s hard-line approach to illegal immigration collected enough signatures to force him into a recall election in November. But allies of Mr. Pearce, who is one of the state’s most powerful politicians, did not take that humiliation lightly. They recruited Ms. Cortes in what was an effort to split the anti-Pearce vote, particularly among Latinos, a judge later found.

That’s right.  Mr. Pearce’s supporters got a Latino woman on the ballot to split the anti-Pearce vote.

Greg Western, a Pearce ally who is the chairman of the East Valley Tea Party, was a central figure in the scheme and became Ms. Cortes’s campaign adviser. . . .

The judge, Edward O. Burke of Superior Court of Maricopa County, declined to remove her from the ballot but did say that the evidence suggested that some of her so-called supporters really supported Mr. Pearce. “The court finds that Pearce supporters recruited Cortes, a political neophyte, to run in the recall election to siphon Hispanic votes from Lewis to advance Pearce’s recall election bid,” the judge said in his ruling.

The stealth candidate will still appear on the ballot and

It remained unclear who exactly financed Ms. Cortes’s short-lived campaign, which employed a professional signature gatherer, produced untold lawn signs, created a Web site and issued occasional news releases that borrow Superman’s theme, “Truth, Justice and the American Way.”

But in case anyone is naïve enough to really wonder about the financial support for Ms. Cortes, there is this about what supporters of the real candidate opposing Mr. Pearce found out.  They

said they had uncovered evidence of even more links between Ms. Cortes and Mr. Pearce, noting for instance that Mr. Pearce’s nieces had helped collect signatures to get Ms. Cortes on the ballot and that one of Mr. Pearce’s brothers, Lester, who is a justice of the peace and is prohibited from campaigning, accompanied them.

So the next time one hears Conservatives in Arizona talking about election fraud, at least it is something with which they are very familiar.